lol, I found a site that you can download songs for 9 cents. wonder if that's legit? Too bad o don't teach school anymore, those kids could tell me how to get them free.
There is no such thing as "FREE & LEGAL" on the web, You pay one way or the other.
YouTube isn't FREE either as You are being bothered with advertisements.
Also, one still needs to pay for ISP traffic.
Even the not-so-legal stuff isn't free as one has to worry whether using any such sources will cause any repercussions and/or consequences.
mp3 at 320kbps is extremely high quality but eats up a lot of storage space, 160kbps is somewhat of a lowest border line quality while not requiring too much space.
I played with other bit rates and found that 128kbps and lower reduces the listening pleasure a lot as bass and high frequencies are being chopped away by the mp3 encoders. Going over 320kbps is futile as most mp3 capable devices don't handle too high bit rates very well and one ends up with huge files containing a single song.
FYI, most mp3 enabled devices also don't handle bit rates lower then 96kbps well (or at all).
I actually own a bunch of legal CD's sitting on a shelf, needles to say they're all about obsolete by today's standards.
I try not to think about the value that went into them so many years ago while they're now worth less than used toilet paper.